Job Description

Job Title: Governance and Advocacy Officer

Place of Work: West Nile with occasional travel to other regions and Head Office.

Reporting to: Policy and Advocacy Coordinator

Job Purpose

UWASNET is looking for an energetic, experienced professional in lobby and advocacy and with knowledge in promoting good governance and accountability at community level. With the support of the Austria Development Agency, UWASNET is implementing a three year project titled “Promoting Good governance & Accountability in Water, Sanitation, Hygiene (WASH) and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) Delivery in Uganda ”. The project will be implemented in West Nile Region with the focus of promoting good governance and accountability.

The Governance and Accountability officer will oversee the engagement of UWASNET member, capacity building, technical oversight of activities related to this project within the West Nile Region for the period 2021-2024. He/She will extend analysis and relationship-building beyond the confines of the WASH sector in order to position WASH as a key economic and human development issue within duty bearer’s plans. Working in collaboration with partners and other relevant stakeholders, He or she will be responsible for processing WASH information with a focus of influencing and optimising the impact of such on gender and WASH activities in the West Nile region to overcome the barriers preventing the poor from accessing safe water, sanitation and hygiene facilities.

Description of key areas of accountability

• Engage and work with UWASNET key stakeholders, to plan, implement and monitor influencing strategies that deliver UWASNET’s strategic objectives, aligned with Promoting Good governance & Accountability in Water, Sanitation, Hygiene (WASH) and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) Delivery in Uganda Project
• Lead the development and implementation of the project policy and advocacy strategy in West Nile and further feed into UWASNET’s advocacy and communication activities.
• Over see capacity building of UWASNET Members in social accountability – score card administration at community level
• Oversee effective liaison between District Leadership in the region and UWASNET members
• Identify learning and research agendas which align to programmatic and policy and advocacy agendas
• Develop position papers and advocacy activities from the evidence of the programme, learnings and stories/priorities from the programme.
• Coordinate communication and visibility activities from the program
• Strengthen the West Nile region - district sector networks by participation in, developing and maintaining relationships with other sector working groups of Education, Agriculture, Health, and Planning for the purpose of identifying, planning for and addressing identified WASH issues.
• Support UWASNET Regional initiatives that involve overseeing regional coordination and mobilisation of members
• Oversee all UWASNET district focal points in the region to effectively mobilise members contribute to UWASNET agendas in the region
• Stay abreast of the fast-paced WASH and environment challenges. Ensure that all stakeholders and UWASNET members across the region are abreast with these issues.
• Identify and advise management on emerging opportunities, risks and challenges for policy influencing (including identifying and advising on potential influencing work that will contribute to policy objectives).
• Ensure that policy and advocacy efforts acknowledge the different WASH needs of diverse groups of people, including refugees, IDPs, returnees, host community, women and girls, people with disabilities.

Recruitment Requirements

Education and aptitude:

• Minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Sciences or Economic or International development.
• A minimum of 3 years working experience in a related role within the NGO sector.
• Good interpersonal and leadership skills.
• High integrity and willingness to conduct themselves transparently and professionally
• Management experience and an ability to communicate key information in a clear, informative and collaborative manner

Job related experience and knowledge:

• Proven experience in Advocacy Governance, Communications and Learning work, with emphasis in administering a score card and use of mWater online application.
• You have demonstrated experience in the development lobby and advocacy strategies, in participating and organising advocacy events and activities, in engaging with multiple stakeholders (government officials, etc.)
• Extensive knowledge of programme / project management in relation to the areas of water, sanitation and hygiene.
• Good understanding of budget advocacy, national public expenditure, National Development Plan, Sector-wide approaches, development financing and functioning of government structures like decentralisation.
• Experience of working with partners together with Excellent computer knowledge of packages like Excel, MS Word and Access
• Excellent communication skills (oral and written) in English within a multicultural context
• You are result-driven and entrepreneurial
• You are a team player and are open to others opinions

Interested & Qualify: Submit electronic Application; CV with three referees and scanned evidence of your professional qualifications and previous experience to the following address by 7th November 2022.

Executive Director; ngocoord@uwasnet.org

Job Email id: ngocoord(at)uwasnet.org